


I think I'd miss you (even if we had never met)

by the_strangest_person



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Secret Santa, Shirbert, Snowed In, Strangers to Lovers, might give you a toothache, wow this turned out longer than I thought
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28414746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_strangest_person/pseuds/the_strangest_person
Summary: Anne doesn't expect for a stranger to turn up at her doorstep in the middle of a snowstorm, claiming that he knows her adoptive mother and has nowhere else to stay. She doesn't expect his emergency sleepover at her apartment to turn into an entire WEEK.orAnne and Gilbert arguing about scrabble and trying to cook dinner together until they fall in love.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 25
Kudos: 175
Collections: The Shirbert Circle





	I think I'd miss you (even if we had never met)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orayofsunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orayofsunshine/gifts).



> okay so first of all, I had this idea planned for a while, and then my lovely friend Liv just decided to unintentionally give me a secret santa prompt that fit with it perfectly. Thanks, Liv - you are a legend and I really really hope you love this!
> 
> second, please enjoy a lot of domestic fluff and Anne trying and failing to hate Gilbert.

Winter swept through Avonlea with the flick of a magic wand; one morning Green Gables would resemble an unfinished painting and a short while later, even the tops of the trees were swallowed in white. As a child, Anne would wake up before dawn and run out into a big, open field, feeling the snowflakes settle on her cheeks as she let the wind pull her one way and then the other. Before the light filtered through the windows, she wasn’t ready to share even a slice of the world with anyone else – it was hers and hers alone. But once the sun rose, she was thrown into a round of mischievous snowball fights with the schoolchildren, their laughter soaring up to the sky as they ridded their woollen gloves and dug their fingers deep into the fresh powder. Marilla would scowl at the melted snow dripping from her winter boots, but Matthew would be sitting by the fire, ready to get an earful of every adventure she had taken part in. She had never felt such a sense of home before.

But Winter in Toronto was merciless. The winds were biting and snarling at those who dared to leave their apartments, and Anne stared out of her frosted window with her chin resting on the palm of her hand.

The snowstorm hit just before the Christmas holidays, and it was the worst they had seen in years. Diana’s parents paid in advance for first class, putting her forward as priority while the rest of her class managed to snag last minute tickets home. Anne knew it wasn’t the best idea to stay behind for the first few days to get ahead on her reading for the next semester, but by the time she considered changing her mind – Matthew and Marilla demanded that she stay until travel was deemed safe. She sat at her cramped desk and watched the visibility decrease, only pausing to flick through Marilla’s recent panicked text messages about the contents of her fridge. It seemed as if she was in for a very boring week. But somewhere above the clouds, she might have been able to hear the universe laughing.

Anne jumped at the shrillness of the doorbell, a sound hardwired straight to her heart.

She scowled on her way to the front door, “ _Who on earth_ … “

All she saw was a pair of eyes and a nose, a bright red one at that. He was wearing a woollen beanie and a bulky jacket that practically swallowed him whole, but it was still his nose that caught her attention. The crimson flush of his skin ran beneath the thick scarf around his neck, shoulders heaving up and down as he panted, and she thought he looked ridiculous. She took a moment to glance behind him to check if he was in the right place, but the streets were deserted and he was looking at her expectantly. She looked him up and down, frowning at the melted puddle of snow that he was leaving on her doormat.

“Can I help you?” she tried to keep the annoyance out of her tone.

He rubbed his gloved hands together quickly, “I’m Gilbert Blythe”, he stated.

Anne blinked at him. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“You’re Anne, _right?_ Anne Shirley-Cuthbert?”, he reached into his back pocket and squinted at his phone through the heavy snowfall, “I thought I had the right address—”

“And how do you know me?”

“I don’t…”, he replied sheepishly, “well…not _really._ Look, can I come in and explain properly? I can’t really feel my fingers and toes.”

She scowled. “You can come in once you tell me how you got this address.”

“I-I was given your address. Marilla, Marilla Cuthbert…she gave it to me. She told me to come here and I – please let me in! The storm is getting worse and I—”

A short sigh left her lips. She wanted to dig her heels into the floor and stand her ground, interrogating him until his answers were to her satisfaction because she certainly didn’t let just _anyone_ into her private space. Not to mention he could end up murdering her and stuffing her body into the closet. But his eyes looked honest enough and he was shivering in the cold, so she opened the door a crack wider and let him shimmy his way past her.

He looked around as he made his way through, just about as nosy as she had expected. Her small apartment wasn’t much; the shower pump switched from scalding hot to freezing cold at its leisure, two of the drawers in her desk didn’t open anymore and she didn’t even have enough floor space for a couch – but somewhere between filling every surface with plants and goofy pictures of her family, it had become home. It was then that she noticed this stranger – _Gilbert_ – was dragging a small suitcase behind him and she wondered what kind of trouble he had gotten himself into to end up knocking at her door. The suitcase paused right in front of a picture of her and Marilla poking their tongues out at the camera, and Anne wondered why she would willingly send this strange boy to her doorstep. He was hardly more than a boy, maybe around the same age as her or just a little bit older. His lips twitched at the photo and she tilted her head with curiosity. “So, how do you know Marilla?”

“Hmm?” he faced her, taking off his beanie. As he bunched it in his hands, more snow fell from the collar of his jacket onto her floor and she sent it an irritated glance.

“How do you know Marilla? And why would she tell you to come to me?”

Something flickered in his eyes, something familiar that she would have picked up on if she wasn’t busy glaring at the floorboards. “I, uh, knew her when I was younger. She was a friend of my father and we used to visit Avonlea a lot back then. My brother and his family live there now, actually…and when I got caught in the storm on my way back to them, I called them up to let them know of the delay and Marilla was with them. She told me that she has a daughter in Toronto, that would be _kind_ enough to help during an emergency.”

“And is this an emergency?” she ignored his amused tone. 

“Well, I was trying to get back for the holidays but the trains were all cancelled because of the storm. It’s predicted to get worse and I was hoping that you could recommend a motel or something that I could check into for the next few days or so…you know, until it calms down enough for the tracks to get cleared.”

She sighed, “They usually fill up pretty quick over the holidays, but I can call some of them to check their availability.”

“I’d appreciate it”, he nodded politely.

“Wait…”, she stopped short, “…you said that you used to visit Avonlea? I lived there with Marilla and Matthew at Green Gables before I came here to start my studies, how have we never met before?”

Gilbert’s grin grew slightly and he looked down at his winter boots. “I think we met once, a long time ago.”

Anne racked through her brain, trying to think of anytime that his name had been mentioned. Avonlea was a small town, and everyone knew each other – that was the kind of place that it was, where neighbours came to each other in time of need and where news spread faster than the printing of any newspaper. She knew that a pretty face like his would be well-known, or there had to be some reason as to why nobody seemed to gossip about him like they did with all of the other pretty faces. But then, with one more scan of his face and his slightly guilty expression – it came spinning back to her. A pale blue party dress with matching ribbons, a three-tier cake with intricate frosting and a pair of grabby hands that wouldn’t leaver her braids alone. In the middle of it all, there was a teenage boy that was just as much of a nuisance as he was standing right in front of her, now.

Her nostrils flared. “At Diana’s birthday party?”, at his reluctant nod she felt her temper rising, “You were the one that got me kicked out!”

He bit back a laugh, “In my defence, you did shove my face into the cake!”

“That’s because you stole my favourite hair ribbon!”

“It was only meant to be a joke!”

She huffed, grumbling under her breath, “I can’t believe that was _you_ …you know, I cried all night because of that! Mrs Barry sent me home for causing chaos and after all that, you still never gave back my favourite hair ribbon!”

 _“Oh, come on!”,_ he raised his eyebrows, “you can’t still be mad about that, I was just a kid.”

“And now you’re back on my doorstep trailing in a puddle of melted snow”, she shot back, nodding to the mess that he had walked in.

He quickly stepped away from his dripping suitcase. “…sorry.”

It sounded remorseful enough so Anne settled for rolling her eyes, making her way over to the kitchen. She could feel him hovering awkwardly behind her, clearly unsure whether he should follow or stay put by his luggage. His feet were shuffling uncomfortably, going to take a step forward before moving back to his spot again. She opened up her cupboard to look for a mug, hesitating for a moment before taking out two of them along with packets of instant hot chocolate.

A timid voice spoke up behind her, “Oh, I’m fine…you don’t have to –”

“You don’t like hot chocolate?”

His words seemed just as stuck as his feet, “I do.”

Anne continued spooning heaped teaspoons of the chocolate powder into each mug, and it seemed Gilbert was happy just to let her continue with no further complaint. For a moment, the sound of the fridge opening and closing, the clang of the spoon knocking against the mug as she stirred, was all that could be heard. She couldn’t quite call it a comfortable silence, but it was tolerable.

When she finally handed him the mug of hot chocolate, nodding at his grateful smile, she noticed the dark circles underneath his eyes. “You look exhausted.”

He took a sip, “I’ll live.”

“It will take you a while to get to a motel in this storm…”, she sighed, looking down at her mug, “…you can stay here for the night and I’ll give them a call in the morning.”

Gilbert stopped drinking, shaking his head insistently, “I’ve caused you enough trouble—”

“That’s true…”, she sent him a pointed look, “…but the storm will only get worse overnight and quite frankly, you look like shit.”

He glanced around, “Where would I sleep?”

She looked back at the stack of papers on her desk, just beside her laptop which was lighting up the room with its bright screen. There were still many sections to go through on the syllabus if she wanted to get several chapters ahead of her classmates for next semester. “You can take the bed for tonight. I have some studying to do anyway so I’ll be up late, no point on making you sleep on the floor like a cat.”

“Are you sure?”, he asked cautiously.

“Don’t make me change my mind”, she replied, only half-joking.

Gilbert placed his empty mug into the sink, a strange look on his face that made her feel uneasy.

“What?” she pressed.

He tilted his head, “It’s the Christmas holidays and you’re studying.”

Anne crossed her arms over her chest defensively, “I like reading a few chapters ahead so that I know what I’m doing next semester.”

The strange look on his face grew into a smile, “...I do that too.”

“The bathroom is over there if you want to change”, she pointed to the left of her apartment, swiftly moving past him so that she could sit back down at her desk and keep studying. She was so used to having the space to herself, that the smallest sound created by him across the room made her fingers freeze their typing. It felt weird to have someone just a few feet away from her, to know that they would be sharing the same silence and breathing the same air for the night. Something about the lack of doors and thin walls in her apartment made it all feel so much more intimate.

A few minutes later, she could hear him shuffling out of the bathroom. His reflection appeared on her computer screen when she clicked onto an article with a dark background, and she quickly adverted her gaze.

He didn’t say goodnight, and neither did she. She could feel him settling down into the bed just several feet away from her, wrapping himself in her blankets and laying his head on her pillow, and another odd feeling crept down her spine. Anne tried to continue with her reading, clicking on several articles and typing her thoughts into a different word document, but for the first few minutes he openly watched her. When she cleared her throat, trying to make it sound more casual than uncomfortable, he got up and quietly made himself a glass of water. But once he got back into bed, she could still feel him looking at her curiously. After about five minutes, she heard him turn away from her. Anne let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding, letting herself sneak a glance once she was absolutely certain that he had fallen asleep.

…

Two days had since passed and this _Gilbert Blythe_ was still in her apartment.

Anne had woken up the next morning after passing out at her desk, looking around with a familiar sense of disorientation after a rough night’s sleep. But she was not alone – he was still curled up on her mattress and she wondered if his body would leave an indentation, just so that she knew her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. When she stood up to make coffee, she was reluctant to make a single sound, standing stiff as a board in her spot so that she didn’t wake him. But she eventually willed her feet to move, still tense even as she reminded herself that it was _her_ apartment and that _he_ was the guest. 

He began to stir as she rang up the local motels, most likely from the unmistakable sound of her arguing.

_“What do you mean you’re all booked?”, she groaned, rubbing her temples, “…the last two motels that I called assured me that you’re always empty.”_

_Gilbert sat up on his elbows._

_“Look, I know it’s less than two weeks before Christmas, but I—”_

_She paced the small amount of floor space._

_“And you’re sure that there’s no chance a booking could be cancelled?”, she gnawed on her lower lip, “…well, yes…I’ve seen the storm but I— “_

_The snowfall outside seemed to pick up even quicker._

_“Okay…”, she sounded defeated and Gilbert sat up completely straight, watching her carefully as she closed her eyes, “…I understand. Merry Christmas to you, too.”_

_Anne hung up the phone and stayed silent for a while. He allowed her to have some space, biting at the skin of her thumb anxiously for a while, glancing out the window to confirm that the roads were still empty and covered in a quickly growing layer of snow. It was a few minutes before she turned to face him, acknowledging him for the first time all morning and he was surprised by her quiet defeat – almost expecting her to put up more of a fight. But she shrugged and Gilbert smiled back at her sheepishly. It seemed as though she wouldn’t be getting rid of him just yet._

Over their shared time, Anne had come to notice his _stupid_ little habits.

He always stole the blankets, took up the largest part of the bed and spent around five minutes fidgeting awkwardly whenever she got in beside him. Most frustratingly, the pillow wall that she built every night was conveniently knocked down by the next morning. And he made faces at her while brushing his teeth – like really silly faces, _annoying_ faces. After agreeing to share, he always finished her packets of ketchup crisps and smarties, and whenever they settled down to read together, he could never stop looking at her over his book, despite how many times she kicked him. He was goofy in the mornings, too. He would sing cheesy 80’s ballads in the shower – _terribly_ – and he was far too hyper while Anne was grumbling into her coffee after a late night of writing.

Anne would like to believe that she was a patient person, someone with aspirations of shaping young minds and leaving imprints on souls of those around her with her wide imagination. But by the end of each day, she wanted to whack him with her old ice hockey stick. She wanted to stuff a sock into his mouth, or perhaps stuff him into the mailbox down the road. Maybe she could ship him back to Avonlea.

“You know, I think we’ve established that you’re pretty useless as far as temporary roommates go.”

“I’m not useless—”

“You’ve got a complete lack of skills! You know nothing about taking care of houseplants and your imagination isn’t interesting enough to help with my latest short story… _oh_ , not to mention you always hog the blanket at night—”

His cheeks flushed. “No, I don’t—”

 _“Yes, you do”,_ she rolled her eyes, “I’m right beside you every night, I think I would know—”

He sent her a look over his shoulder, “Well, you’ve never complained before.”

“I’m polite.”

“That must be it.”

“I’m going to ignore that”, one leg crossed over the other, “…where was I?”

“Oh, I’m sorry— “, he laughed, “…I didn’t mean to interrupt. I believe you were in the middle of listing my lack of skills.”

“We don’t have to mention how useless you are in the kitchen, do we?”, she raised an eyebrow, gesturing to the space in front of him on the counter where he was attempting to chop up some carrots for their stew. _Butchering_ them, would be a more accurate description. Anne wanted to make some homemade stew with the leftover vegetables that would soon go mouldy, and she set him the simplest tasks only to find out that he couldn’t even butter bread without poking holes with the knife.

Gilbert at least had the curtesy to look rather embarrassed, rubbing at the back of his neck as he looked down at his unevenly chopped carrots.

“Didn’t anybody ever give you cooking lessons?”

“My brother’s wife… _Mary_ , she tried…”, he protested, smile fighting to stay genuine, “…for a little while. But I guess I haven’t shown much improvement.”

“I don’t know why I have so much faith in someone who says that _Walt Whitman_ is their favourite poet”, she grumbled under her breath. “I could name a dozen poets that use more romantic language in one sentence than he does in an entire stanza.”

“And what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”, he put down the knife, resting his chin on the palm of his hand.

She glanced up at him, considering, “That’s beautiful.”

“It’s Whitman.”

His grin was triumphant but she waved him away, expertly changing the subject, “Remind me, why didn’t you go to school in Avonlea?”

“I mainly lived with my father in Alberta.”

“I once read Barry Cornwall’s ‘The Fisherman’ in school. Although our teacher Mr Phillips didn’t have much scope to the imagination and told me that my reading was outrageous…he said I scarcely spooked my classmates out of participating—”

“I don’t doubt that”, Gilbert jibed, taking a moment to imagine a little Anne with twin red braids and blue hair ribbons that he was merely weeks away from stealing; a loud voice filling the classroom and turning heads with every emphasised syllable.

She straightened up, “You should consider yourself lucky that you didn’t attend school in Avonlea. I don’t doubt for a minute that I would knock you straight off your precious top spot in Geometry.”

“It wasn’t just Geometry”, he teased from behind her as she turned back to check on the boiling potatoes, “…I was top in History, Calculus _and_ English.”

“You read Whitman”, she stuck her tongue out at him.

He swallowed down a lump in his throat that she didn’t quite catch, his pause not long enough for her to notice, “My father read it to me when I was young, and I guess it always reminds me of those few summers in Avonlea.”

She shook her head, sighing.

“What?”, he felt unsure of himself at her reaction.

“You know I can’t argue with that”, she smiled at him from over her shoulder and his expression brightened.

They worked in silence for a few minutes, with Anne sticking a fork through the potatoes to check if they were ready, glancing over with amusement as Gilbert tried to finish the carrots. He spoke up absentmindedly, looking over at the bowl filled with the carrots that he had already messily peeled and chopped, “You could always try to teach me how to cook, you know. So that I’m not entirely useless.”

She walked over to him, taking the knife from his grip and twirling it in her hands, “I’d rather do the cooking until you leave than risk burning my kitchen down.”

“Well for now, it’s _our_ kitchen and besides—”

**_“SHIT—”_ **

Gilbert stopped short, “What?”

“The knife just slipped and… _ouch_ , fuck— “, she placed the knife onto the counter beside her and looked down at her finger. She had been too busy laughing at the thought of trying to teach clumsy Gilbert how to bake a cake or make something other than burnt toast, that she had forgotten the knife in her hands that he used to chop up the vegetables. It sliced the top of her finger cleanly and was now stinging terribly.

He stepped forwards, gently grabbing her finger, “Let me see…”, he turned it in different directions under his scrutinizing gaze before a mask of seriousness came over his face, a deep look of concentration. “It’s only small, but here, run it under the cold water.”

She let him guide her to the sink, turning the tap to the cold option and watching her wince. Her finger turned numb after a moment and her shoulders relaxed.

 _“Here_ , put this on”, he instructed her, feeling around in his back trouser pocket for a moment before pulling something out. It was a small plaster with a yellow smiley face on the front, and she wondered why he randomly had medical supplies with him.

Anne couldn’t hold back her weird look.

Gilbert noticed it and laughed, “I’m a pre-med major.”

 _“Oh”,_ she breathed, watching him as he carefully wrapped the plaster around the tip of her pointer finger, smoothing it down at the edges so that it would stay put. He couldn’t resist, drawing her hand back up to him for a moment so that he could playfully kiss the tip of her sore finger, dodging her elbow that was aimed for his side. His smile was bright, and maybe even a little dopey, so they quickly turned back to making the stew.

As she reached for some spices in the cupboard, she couldn’t help but smile to herself – realizing that perhaps she had found a use for him after all.

…

Once they hit day 5 or 6 (they seemed to have lost count along the way), the pair had found their own strange little routine – their small actions woven into recognizable patterns. Gilbert still forgot to shut the cupboards after opening them to grab plates and Anne still insisted that he was cheating at scrabble because she was too stubborn to accept defeat. They bickered back and forth, brushing past each other in the apartment with ease, holding grudges until they quickly grew bored and worked through more board games. And even though the next board game would inevitably start another argument, they both concluded that it was better than sitting in the storm alone. A little bit of company wasn’t so bad, after all.

“Are you sure you don’t have anything warmer?”

“No”, she rolled her eyes, “…I’ll be fine. I won’t be out for long anyway.”

He couldn’t let it go, “Frostbite is a thing, you know.”

“So is minding your own business!”, she stared him down, hands on hips. “We’ve already discussed this and you are staying here. We need the food and the corner shop is just down the road. I’m not going on a mountain trek, Gilbert.”

“We’re in the middle of a storm!”, he spluttered.

She brushed past him, picking up a pair of gloves. “It’s hardly snowing anymore! They just need to clear the tracks and what we need”, her pointed look made his shoulders slump, “…is to not starve in the meantime.”

“Wear my coat instead”, he offered, but it sounded more like a plea. Before she could turn him down, he reached for his thick coat that had been hanging next to hers on the back of the front door. She held it in her hands loosely and gave it a once over before sighing and putting it on. He nodded in approval once she buttoned it up, tucking her scarf inside so that it would be snug against her chest.

“Happy?” she put her small hands into the big pockets.

“Almost…”, he considered, going back to grab his grey beanie that had been hanging underneath the coat, “…you should protect your ears as well.”

Anne took a step back, “My ears are fine.”

“They will be, if you cover them from the snow”, he insisted, taking a stride forward to catch her, covering her bright hair with his woollen beanie.

He took his time adjusting it, perhaps longer than necessary just to get on her nerves, but just when she looked up to glare at him she was taken back by the expression on his face. It was calm, not a far stretch from… _tender_. And when she narrowed her eyes at him in challenge, studying his face just like she did when about to work out his technique and winning move, he didn’t participate in whatever game she assumed they were playing. His eyes were gentle and she didn’t like it one bit.

“Have you got the shopping list?”, he asked after stepping away from her.

She rolled her eyes, “Yes, dear.”

He called after her as she made her way to the front door, hesitating before unlocking it, anticipating the sting on her cheeks from the icy wind _. “Be careful!”_

Outside, everything seemed so _still_ – as if the air was still partly frozen. Anne caught a hint of the sun as she looked up, burning like ice instead of shining with warmth – but _there_ , nonetheless. And when she waved at a young family playing in the several inches of snow across the street, it felt as though the storm had allowed the world to breathe and come up for air. The wind was still icy and snowflakes still landed on the edge of Gilbert’s beanie, dampening the material, but everything moved at a slower pace – granting a small reprieve. As she made her way down the street, she wondered why it felt so very much like she was walking out into a completely different world.

As she entered the corner shop, her skin tingled at the change in temperature. She rubbed her gloves together while scanning the aisles with a basket, mentally checking items off her list as she picked them up. She made sure to stop by the snack aisle, picking up double the amount of ketchup Lays and smarties so that they wouldn’t fight over having to share. It was her first-time shopping for someone other than herself, and taking into consideration the things that Gilbert might want. In the back of her mind, she recalled all the times that Ruby would complain about shopping with Moody once they moved in together; she would spend ages debating what flavour of crisps he liked best and scouring her brain for the memory of his favourite shampoo. But Anne was finding it surprisingly easy to take somebody else into consideration. She was sure that if Gilbert was with her, they would still get the job done fairly quick – even though he would frequently stop to pick up random objects just to make her laugh. He might have needed to talk her out of buying that extra bottle of tequila or a useless kitchen appliance to test out – so it could be considered a fair trade of wasted time. She could picture them stumbling home in laughter, maybe even celebrating with a high five once they put away their shopping bags. It was something bizarrely easy to imagine.

“Gilbert?” she called after twisting the key in the door.

His voice sounded nervous as she bent over to place down the heavy shopping bags, “You okay? Can you still feel your fingers and toes?”

“Oh, it wasn’t half as bad as you—” she looked up and stopped short.

Her apartment was filled with the gentle glow of fairy lights, warm and twinkling. In the tight space where they regularly sat cross-legged on the floor, arguing over the rules of a board game – was a world away from the one just outside the door. The bed had been shuffled closer to the kitchen, squashed against her two-seater table and chair set, leaving a bigger space between the front door and her desk. And in its place, her bed sheets had been hung from the wall to create the idea of a tent, pillows and blankets filling up the floor space. The Christmas lights that she had been saving for the end of the week, he must have found in the cardboard box under her bed when he was moving it to create space. They were taped to the sheets, draping down to light up the entire room in the shapes of little golden stars.

Gilbert walked forward slowly, face sheepish – observing that Anne didn’t look angry per say, maybe just _taken aback_. At first, she tried to open her mouth, whether to thank him or yell at him was uncertain, but she found that no words came out. She was too busy wondering why a few fairy lights and bed sheets had made her apartment look so different – so much more _intimate_ – and why that thought scared her. She wondered why Gilbert, practically a stranger, had taken the time to create something like this for her. And she knew that he didn’t do it for himself or even for the both of them – _no_ , with one look at his face she knew that he did it _for her_. She wondered why she felt a sudden overwhelming urge to cry. She didn’t cry easily, and those stupid Disney movies didn’t count, she fought to shield her tears from others, but suddenly she wanted to cry. She wanted to _sob._

Anne practically attacked him with a tight hug, snow-covered coat and all.

For their first real form of contact, it wasn’t at all awkward or unpleasant. He nearly fell back at the force and melted snow started to drip from the beanie that she was still wearing, but Gilbert didn’t mind. He let one hand wrap around her back, feeling the wetness of his coat, and the other cradled the back of her head. And somehow, after so many games of scrabble, casual conversations about their academic history and anything that they could think of to pass the time, even after sleeping right beside her all week – it was the closest he had come to _knowing_ her. Under the flickering lights, her eyelashes fluttered closed against him and he wondered how long he would be able to keep her there.

 _“Thank you”,_ she whispered, squeezing herself around him one more time before slowly stepping away. And with slight hesitation, he let her.

They took their time putting away the groceries after Anne peeled off her outwear, Gilbert hanging them over her heater so that they would dry. She guided him to where each item needed to go and noticed that he remembered to close the cupboards this time, turning around to double check. It wasn’t as much of a surprise at this point, that they made a pretty good team. When they finished, Gilbert held his hand up for a high five and begged her to tell him what was so funny after she burst out laughing. Anne shook her head as she put away the empty shopping bags, trying to hide her secret smile.

“So, you’re trying to spend the holidays with your brother?”

The scrabble board had been shoved aside, abandoned by their feet after yet another heated debate broke out. It was rather inevitable at this point.

“Well, it’s a little more than that”, he turned to face her and his voice was impossibly soft, “…I made a promise to a certain little niece that I would be home for Christmas.”

“To deliver her presents?” Anne guessed.

He reached over and flicked her cheek, “And because I’m her favourite person.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are”, she teased, dodging when he tried to flick her forehead this time. “How could anyone ever get sick of you?”

His skin was sporting a painfully beautiful golden glow and under the lights, she was sure he had freckles just a shade lighter than her own. “You tell me.”

Anne imagined curly-haired, brilliant-thinker Gilbert picking up a smiling little girl and spinning her around in the air until she squealed, kissing her knee and securing it with a colourful plaster after she slipped on the ice on her way to build an igloo. She saw his family welcoming him into their warm home where they would decorate sugar cookies and knit sweaters for their neighbours. She let herself go further and imagined Gilbert at school in Alberta, winning spelling bees against his classmates and staying behind to ask his teacher about any possible extra credit work to add to his load. She didn’t dare to imagine him singing. She saw him reading Whitman with his father, telling him for the very first time that he wanted to become a doctor. But she had to stop herself before she let herself imagine anything else, because she thought to herself that if she knew him all those years ago – _really_ knew him – she might have had to talk herself out of falling in love with him. And it was a realization terrifying enough to force her into changing the subject.

“You said Marilla was a friend of your father’s, were they close?”

He shifted uncomfortably but answered fairly quickly, “I think they went to school together when they were young, but they never really told me much about it. Green Gables is just on the other side of our farm, so when we visited Avonlea and my Dad got sick…Marilla helped out a lot. All of our neighbours did at some point, but she would come over and make sure that I had eaten, and she would take care of him some days while I did the farm work.”

“Did it take a long time for him to get better?”

A sudden icy chill from the storm swept its way through the apartment, and even the starry lights seemed to flicker.

His voice was small, “He didn’t.”

Anne never knew her apartment could feel so big, that he could feel so far away from her. He was lying on his back, just inches away, but measurements of space and time seemed useless after the truth settled. As they both laid in silence, she was suddenly very aware of the dripping of her kitchen tap and the sound of wind rattling against the old windows in her very old building. Selfishly, she wanted to scream at him and plead for the Gilbert that she had come to know; the Gilbert that brought in snow from the window so that he could put it down the back of her sweater, the Gilbert that sang in the shower, the Gilbert that poked her cheeks until she woke up. She swallowed the lump in her throat, quickly understanding that this Gilbert had been there all along, hiding just underneath the surface, far enough away because she hadn’t thought to ask.

“I…I didn’t know…”, she felt sick, “…I’m so – _God,_ I’m so sorry I never asked.”

“How would you say it?”, he shrugged sadly, glancing up at her and the blankness of his face made her feel like the storybook villain that had unintentionally gone for his jugular, “I certainly wouldn’t know how.”

“I should have…”, she shook her head, disgusted with herself, “I-I should have—”

 _“Anne”,_ he stopped her, a hint of warmth back in his voice, “…you couldn’t have known and if…if I was really ready to say it, then I would have. You would have found out eventually and I guess I was just trying to postpone it.”

She bit her lip, “Is that the reason you want to be a Doctor?”

He nodded, a bitter smile on his face, “I didn’t know what to do with myself at first and I used travelling as an excuse to run away. I met Bash along the way and then he met Mary and I…I brought them back to Avonlea and let them move into the farm. It was empty most of the time and it was the least I could do for them after everything. And now…they live there, and I sat myself down and realized that I couldn’t live with myself knowing that there are so many people going through the exact same thing, and that they might not be as lucky to find a makeshift family like I did. My mother died while giving birth to me, I-I didn’t even get to meet her and it took running away to realize how much it screwed me up to lose the only thing I had ever known. So, a few years ago, I enrolled and signed up for Pre-Med and told myself that I would do whatever I could to give people a happier ending than the one I got.”

Anne reached down and curled her fingers around his.

“You know what I think?”, she whispered, looking up at the twinkling stars, “…I think you’re really brave.”

 _“Brave?”_ he tested the word out, “…I don’t know that I—”

“I think it’s brave. After everything you went through, using your potential in a way that is for the greater good of everyone else…you clearly knew that working in a hospital and being around those kinds of people would bring back some painful memories. And I think it’s really brave that you knew that and still decided that you want to wake up every morning and help others.”

It took a minute to settle but he swallowed quickly, and Anne knew that her words affected him more than he would like to let on. She knew better than anyone that it was harder to accept kind words than to believe the lies.

“Sometimes I wonder what it would be like…”, he breathed, “…if my parents were still around. If my Dad didn’t cry every year on my birthday and if I didn’t have to pretend like I couldn’t hear him from my bedroom. If I didn’t constantly feel like I was going to lose everyone close to me. If I didn’t have to learn how to iron my own shirts and do my own laundry, and if Mary didn’t have to teach me to do all of the things that my mother should have taught me. I wonder if I would have turned out differently.”

“I think you turned out pretty great”, she whispered carefully, as if it was a secret.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe I’m being stupid. I-I know how lucky I am to have my family, even if they aren’t my own. But…I don’t know.”

The dripping of the tap seemed to intensify.

“You still wonder what it feels like to truly belong?” Anne asked hesitantly.

Gilbert turned to look at her, smile sad, “Something like that.”

“That’s not stupid”, her own voice grew smaller.

“Can I ask you something?”, she could feel his eyes on her and his question was already sitting there in his eyes, something that she had been expecting for a while. “Why do you call Matthew and Marilla by their names? You know, instead of—”

“Mum and Dad?”

He nodded, watching her silently.

It was a story that she hadn’t told for a long time. She tried to hold it off for as long as she could, making sure not to spring it on people right after meeting them for the first time, and most of the people close enough to her already knew the ending. It had been a very long time since she had been expected to sit down and recount the details to someone new, and a very long time since she wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea. Gilbert hadn’t felt like a stranger to her for a while and with his hand in hers – still clammy from opening up for the first time – she somehow found the strength to begin. It was the tale of a little girl with stars in her eyes and stories in her heart that was growing up with the belief that happy endings didn’t exist, only to turn around and find her own one. And somehow, she knew that it was a story he would understand.

“I guess the short answer, is that they aren’t my parents”, she corrected herself quickly, “…well, _they are._ Over the years they have definitely become my family and I could never wish for anything different…but I guess you could say they are my family on paper.”

Gilbert tightened his fingers around hers. She looked down at their hands, only half-startled because for a minute she had forgotten that she hadn’t moved hers away.

“They adopted me when I was twelve, it must not have been long before we met for the first time”, she sent him a look and his lips twitched, “…and before they brought me to Avonlea, I was passed between foster homes. They never kept me for long. I would watch the other children get adopted around me, and it seemed nobody wanted the scrawny red head. And when I was between foster homes, I went to a local children’s orphanage.”

Her voice cracked near the end and his throat swelled, “Was it horrible?”

“I-It certainly wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows”, she steadied her voice, “…but I’m sure there were worse places to end up. Things became better when I came to Green Gables, _so_ much better. But sometimes I…can’t help but wonder what would have happened to me if Matthew and Marilla didn’t take a chance on a little girl with a prominent temper”, a burst of laughter escaped her but it was broken, “…I suppose I would have gotten a job eventually and would have built a life for myself.”

“I’m glad they found you.”

 _“Me too”,_ she admitted in a scared whisper, “…I guess I never thought anyone would ever want me…after all, that’s what I had been told so many times. My first night at Green Gables, I woke up in tears because it was dark and for a minute I thought I was back in the orphanage… _alone.”_

He frowned at the thought of how badly she must have been treated for so long, to wake up terrified that her happily ever after was nothing more than a dream.

The next time he spoke up, there was a wary edge to his voice. “I hate to think about you sitting here alone up until I came along.”

“I guess I’m pretty lucky you did”, she joked and looked away.

“Your friends managed to get home, which means that if I didn’t turn up – you would have been here alone in the storm. I hate to imagine that.”

Anne smiled half-heartedly, “I don’t really mind being alone anymore.”

It sounded like she was trying so hard to sound believable, maybe even trying to convince herself along the way. Gilbert turned to look at her, this person that let him into her apartment and brought his favourite snacks without letting him pay for any of the groceries, this person who held his hand when he told her his greatest fears and shared the darkest corners of her own heart in a fair exchange. All those years ago, he might have just looked at her and saw a girl with red braids. He might have seen a distraction. But lying next to her in the glow of a hundred fairy lights, he couldn’t ignore the strength and resilience that she had grown to have despite how life tried so hard to shove her aside. He tightened his grip on her fingers and wondered how anyone could ever want to get rid of her. _“Why do I get the feeling that isn’t true?”_

It was something that was painful to think about, it was _so_ hard to admit to herself that underneath it all, she was still a scared little girl who still sometimes had bad dreams. But not normal childish nightmares about roaring dragons or monsters under the bed – _no_ , think a long dark dream about being left on a doorstep like trash.

“It took myself a long time to realize that not everybody wanted to throw me away…to leave me behind”, she felt her chin wobble, “…it’s still hard to believe at times.”

A finger hooked underneath her jaw and he turned her head back towards him, his own voice tight with emotion, “I can’t imagine why anybody would want to.”

It never occurred to Anne that she could feel so fragile in the presence of someone else. That lying in her apartment with someone that she had known for less than a week, with a dozen cheap fairy lights and sheets that still needed to be cleaned, would make her feel so safe. He was listening to every word, _really_ listening. She could tell just by looking at him that he cared about what she was saying, that he was giving her his full attention, and it was something that she hadn’t experienced in a long time. She had always been labelled as too loud, too argumentative, too controversial. Her chin was wobbling with vulnerability and she feared she would fall into the corners of his dark eyes and never climb her way back out, but it was the safest she had felt in a long time. The message was right there– with every brush of his finger below her jawline and every word, he was telling her loud and clear… _you matter to me._

“I haven’t told anybody any of this in a really long time.”

He wasn’t looking at her with pity, only understanding. “Me neither.”

Another sudden rush of vulnerability hit her like a wave, once she realized how close they had gotten without even realizing. It was as if he had found a way to sneak up on her, but it was in no way malicious. It might have even been magical. They were pressed together from the shoulder to hip, their feet almost bumping into each other over the blanket used as the floor in their makeshift pillow fort, and she wondered if they could get closer. She wondered if he noticed her breath catching because his gaze dropped lower than her eyes, and she felt herself stiffen. Her skin didn’t feel like her own – zapping with electricity, and she feared that she would obliterate into millions of pieces if he touched her anymore.

They both seemed afraid to move away. It was scary how normal it felt to be with him in this way, how familiar he felt while only inches away from her. She could feel another piece of him slotting inside her heart, and wondered if he could hear it pick up the pace as if chanting, taunting them to go further. It was a moment for them: a moment for Anne and Gilbert, and in that moment, they were more than their broken childhoods, more than their darkest demons – and what could be more vulnerable?

“Did I tell you about the time I burnt the thanksgiving pie?” she blurted out quietly, eyes flickering back and forth between his, “…Marilla was so angry at me.”

Gilbert grinned fondly. “I bet she was.”

He didn’t move away, and he didn’t dare to snap out of the moment. In fact – they both stayed right in it, mutually deciding within the silence that they wouldn’t let their careless words and actions let the magic fizzle out. He tucked his hand under his head as she continued telling the story, letting her decide whether she wanted to let go of his other hand or not, and she found herself falling for him even more because of it.

They fell asleep as a pair, wrapped in the stories of their past that hovered behind them like shadows, but the load felt lighter somehow.

…

Anne could hear her heart pounding before she even opened her eyes. She forced herself to crawl out of his cosy invention, swallowing down the feeling in the pit of her stomach as she made her way to the window. Her arms wrapped around her middle and she spent the earliest hours of the morning staring out of the window at the melting snow, not looking over at him once.

It wasn’t waking up to his face inches from hers that spooked her – no, it was how _ordinary_ it felt. She expected him to be there, but it was more than that – she _wanted_ him to be there the second she opened her eyes, and it terrified her because she could feel with every little bit of her heart that the last thing she wanted to do was move from that spot. It was nonsensical, she knew that. But she wanted to stay there, to _lean in_ to the moment right up until she was pulled away from him by another pair of hands. The first time she opened her eyes that morning, the reflection of the moon cast shadows on his face. It had been late and chilly, and she could feel his cold nose pressed into her warm cheek. And she could remember wanting to stay then, she could remember wanting to tuck herself under his chin and sleep tight against his chest where the unkind words couldn’t reach her. It made her feel sick to her stomach. Anne was no stranger to thinking about running away – she often couldn’t stop herself from taking off as soon as things got hard, as soon as things got complicated. But this time, she wanted to run _towards_ something. So, she took her hand out of his and rolled over, squeezing her eyes shut in the hopes that she could block out the sound of his steady breathing.

That hand was still stretched out across the blanket, reaching for her.

She couldn’t bear to look at those flickering golden stars, couldn’t bear to look at what he had created for a moment longer – because all she could remember was standing there looking at what he had made for her, trying not to cry. This was a stranger that owed her absolutely nothing, someone that came to her apartment in a crisis and ended up finding a safe haven while the storm cleared. This was Gilbert, who spent his time arguing with her about scrabble and tried his best to help her cook dinner every night even though he was hopeless, who asked her stupid trivial questions and listened to her answers. And he spent his afternoon making something cosy and creative for her, to show her that she _mattered_ to him, and in that moment – she realized that he mattered to her, too.

And the worst part about it all, was that she woke up the next morning feeling as if her heart had been pried open. As if someone had taken their bare hands and ripped her chest apart, had peeked at her darkest thoughts and emptied all of her precious moments out of her heart as if they weren’t hers to keep. Instead of feeling hopeful at the sensation of opening up to someone, instead of feeling _seen_ \- she felt violated. And all she wanted to do was to wrap herself up and hide away from the world, away from the stranger in her bed that she somehow impossibly cared for, and she wanted to go back to a time where nobody could see through her that clearly. It was terrifying, to have someone know you.

It was terrifying, because the moment she heard the roar of a train in the early hours of the morning, she realized that she wasn’t ready for him to leave.

“Good morning”, he eventually mumbled from the floor.

“Morning.”

“What are you thinking for breakfast?”, he asked as if it was that simple, and she wanted to _scream_.

“You can pick.”

“Are you sure?” he joked, voice still filled with sleep, “…I guess it’s got to be something straight forward enough so I don’t burn the kitchen down, right?”

Her hands tightened their grip on the window pane and she pressed her forehead against the freezing cold glass for a moment, inhaling deeply. She could hear him shuffling around, tucked up in her blankets just like she had found him tucked up in the corner of her heart. She found herself spinning around to face him, smiling too-brightly. “Hey, good news!”

“You’re going to make pancakes?”, he guessed cheekily.

“No—”

“Waffles?”

“No—”

“Anything that requires syrup?” he pouted like a child and she dug her fingernails into her palms so that she didn’t beg him to stay.

The sleep hadn’t left his eyes and so his gaze was cripplingly delicate. His curls were messier than usual, sticking up instead of lying flat at the nape of his neck – stubborn. She wanted to smooth them down and maybe crawl into the blankets beside him, pulling them over their heads so that they could sleep with their fingers intertwined once more. Safe and preserved, hidden away from the world in their own sanctuary. But with a brutally cheerful delivery and an over-keen smile, she pulled the rug from under their sleeping bodies – “The trains are up and running.”

“They are?” his face lit up for the slightest second, clearly picturing his family back home. Then, just as quickly as relief passed over him, something darker appeared and his eyes met hers once more. His lips parted and he was silent for a while, she could practically see the cogs turning in his mind.

“We’ve got to get you packed!”, she chirped, spinning back around to locate his suitcase so that she could place it by the door, “…I still have a bit of work to do so you will have to travel on your own, but I’m sure you’re confident with the route. We can get you out on the first one if we hurry, that way you can be with your family and— “, she faltered for a moment, “…things can go back to the way they were.”

 _“Oh”,_ he blurted, looking down for a split second in the hopes that she wouldn’t catch the disappointment on his face, “…you aren’t coming back with me?”

“No”, she didn’t waste time sugar-coating, “I’ll look to leave in a few days.”

“Anne, are you sure you don’t want to travel with me?”, he offered, voice filled with a smidgen of hope, “…I mean, we are going to the same place and I wouldn’t mind the company.”

She waved him off, “I’ll be fine.”

It hit her as soon as she shut the bathroom door behind her. There was something about being _alone_ with someone, something about getting to know them away from everyone else – away from judgement and inquisitive eyes and questions. There was nothing special about the time they had spent together. But between the scrabble matches and cooking disasters, beneath the warm blankets and twinkling lights, and amongst the whispered words and accidental intimacy, Anne had started to see him as _hers_. It was stupid to believe that human beings were built to be owned by another, to act as careless machines that needed to belong to somebody, anybody. But in the space of a week, she had become terrified at the thought of him existing anywhere other than tucked up in her apartment, right beside her.

When she was brought to Green Gables, everything needed to be worked at. On the first night, Marilla awkwardly patted her knee when Anne cried with relief at the idea of finally being away from her own personal hell. Matthew left the room whenever they had an argument and neither of them knew exactly what to say when she was upset, or how to calm her down when she flew into a spit of rage. It was something to be nurtured over time, adjustments made here and there so that they could make it work. It was never easy. Marilla opened up to Anne’s eccentric ideas and began to realize that being brave didn’t always mean that trouble would come knocking at their door, and Matthew made her cups of tea and convinced Marilla to listen when something was important to her. The sense of family was built over time, mounded on the foundation that had settled on the morning that they picked her up from the orphanage.

But with Gilbert, years’ worth of awkwardness was filtered into the first three days. They spent some time dancing around each other and for a little while, Anne was pretty sure he was completely useless, but as soon as that cleared away – they somehow found a way to make sense together. They inexplicably fit like two pieces of the puzzle randomly picked out of the overflowing box, thrown together by chance. She knew the second that she opened the door and saw him covered in snow, that he would cause her a great deal of trouble. It just turned out to be a different kind of trouble than she had been expecting.

Anne refused to start crying until she was beneath the running water.

He managed to pack fairly quickly, throwing everything into his suitcase and arguing with different reasons as to why he should be allowed to take a few snacks for the road. He drew a smiley face with **_“Gilbert was here”_** on a post-it note that she had left on the fridge and she couldn’t even joke about throwing it in the bin, because she knew that the second he left, she would crumple it into her first and hold on tight – a reminder that he had been there, that someone like him really did exist. She helped him to organize his things, tucking socks into the corners of his suitcase when he was convinced he had run out of space. And when he placed it by the door with a triumphant sigh, she kept her eyes on the floor so he wouldn’t see the devastation in them.

She picked up his coat, holding it out so that he could slip his arms into it. He did so, with a surprised chuckle, wondering why she seemed so hell-bent on doing everything for him. Little did he know, it was the only way for her to distract herself.

Anne’s fingers found the zip at the bottom and dragged it up slowly, making sure to tuck in his scarf on the way, just as he had once done for her. When she was finally done, she couldn’t bring herself to move away. Her palms lay flat on his chest, her eyes not daring to meet his. _“Anne.”_

After receiving no reply, he hooked a finger under her chin and guided her eyes to his. He looked concerned, worried even, and she felt her eyes start to water. “You’ve been really quiet this morning.”

She closed her eyes, letting her hands slip back down to her sides. He wouldn’t let her go, and his fingers curled around her chin until his entire hands were cupping her pale cheeks. “What’s wrong? You can tell me.”

That was the problem. She _could_ tell him, she could tell him _anything_ and something like this shouldn’t have been that simple. His touch was so gentle, so careful as if he was coaxing her out of her comfort zone with every caress, every movement of his thumbs. They were rubbing small circles into her freckles, treating her like glass that was destined to shatter. It should have made her angry, but after fighting to appear strong and independent for all of her life, all she wanted was to be treated like something delicate. There was something comforting about the hazel of his eyes – combining the golden tips of the crunchy autumn leaves with the hopeful spring buds. They were eyes that she could look into for the rest of her life, eyes that she knew she could confide in, the eyes of someone that she could _rely on._ He was the outline of every single one of her dreams and he would soon fade away like another memory too painful to remember.

“You gave me a high-five after we put away the groceries.”

She knew it must have been the last thing he was expecting, and his eyebrows twisted together with confusion as he patiently gave her the space to continue. One by one, little nudges and clues pieced together to reveal why she had felt so on edge all morning.

“You reach out for me in your sleep”, she whispered.

His tips of his ears turned pink at that, and when he opened his mouth to protest, that was when it all came spilling out of her.

“You sing really loudly when you’re in the shower, but I don’t mind. You carry plasters with smiley faces on them, always ready to patch someone up, and you brush your teeth beside me like it’s a competition. You have a picture of your niece as your lock screen and you wanted me to give you cooking lessons so that you could help me make dinner every night. Y-You”, she took a deep breath, “…you built me a pillow fort to thank me for getting us groceries and it was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. You always make me laugh at what an idiot you are and although it sounds crazy, trust me – I know it does, I…I find it easy to tell you things that I haven’t even told my best friend.”

“Anne—”

“You always steal my snacks and hog the blanket, but I still let you. You end up arguing with me after every scrabble game, every boardgame, in fact. You described Avonlea to me and it sounded like you were reciting poetry”, her eyes sparkled, “…You understand me in a way that nobody else does, in a way that I don’t think anybody else ever will…and I think I understand you too.”

His voice was hushed, _“...you do.”_

“What I’m trying to say, Gilbert…”, she shook her head, biting her lip so that the tears didn’t spill, “…is that I have always hated people coming over to my apartment. I don’t like sharing with anyone, not even my closest friends. I have always seen my apartment as my safe place, somewhere for me to be lost in my thoughts and to just…be myself. But somewhere along the way, maybe when you set up that stupid pillow fort…or when I actually enjoyed buying groceries for you…or maybe even when you first walked through that door, it became _our safe place_. And now I have no idea how I am supposed to act _happy_ and to let you walk out that door, when I’m pretty sure I would be happy to spend the rest of my life in here, holed up in this apartment with you.”

She felt so silly, like such a fool. Her head hung low and his hands fell from her face, as if he didn’t know what to do with himself either. She wasn’t even sure if he understood a word of it, because it hardly made sense to her own ears. In truth, it was a rather poor confession. Nothing at all like the fireworks and electricity that she had read about in books, nothing like the romantic eloquent speeches she had written in her own words, in fact, it seems she was pretty useless at describing feelings of her own. The whole moment was rather sad. The carefree air that they had been breathing in all week shrivelled like an old balloon. And neither of them seemed to know where to go from there.

Gilbert spoke up timidly. “I-I really didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Me neither”, she admitted.

“I can’t lie to you, Anne…I felt it from the very first day, I could feel it with every minute that we spent together, every moment that passed. And I spent a lot of time telling myself that it was just me being stupid, that I couldn’t stop myself from desperately gripping onto the first good thing that had happened to me in a long time…”, he heaved a heavy sigh, tugging her head back up to meet his, their noses brushed together as he uttered, _“…but I won’t be sorry for it._ _I can’t be.”_

His lips came down onto hers without hesitation, with a pressure tender enough to be broken if she wanted it to be. But when she didn’t step away, his mouth slanted against hers and her body melted into his. There was a passion to it, an _eagerness_ that clued her into the fact that he had been thinking about doing it for a while. It definitely didn’t feel like the first time _, no –_ it somehow felt like they had gotten a lot of practice in another lifetime, as if they fit together too perfectly for it to be a first attempt. One of his hands strayed from her cheek, curling its way around her waist as she pushed herself onto her tiptoes, cupping his cheeks so that she could bring him closer, closer, _closer_. She leaned into him as his spine curved instinctually, their bodies responding to each other so naturally, and it should have scared her – it really should have, but if anything, it egged her on. Anne brushed her tongue against his and he let out the softest sigh, tightening his grip on her. He tasted like the spearmint toothpaste that he had brushed his teeth with that morning, and like the sunshine and trees in Avonlea.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, it registered with her that she was crying. As she squeezed her eyes shut and let her body take control, every ounce of devastation and fear came spilling out of her, ready to be out in the open. Gilbert’s thumb caught onto one of them and he almost pulled away to check on her, but she tugged his head back down to hers, not ready to let go of the moment just yet. Or maybe it was him that she wasn’t ready to let go of. Their words had woven together all week, thoughts spinning around in sync and now their bodies worked as one with an intricate chemistry. With every touch of his lips to hers, he brought out her elemental nature, the part of her that was hidden from others. And as they gradually started to slow down and part from each other, she wondered if that slice of Gilbert Blythe would always live within her heart. The part that had been there since the moment he spoke his name, and the distant thought of her once asking if it should mean anything to her – it made her want to throw her head back and laugh. Their foreheads found each other and she swore their erratic heartbeats would never slow back down, that she would never for a moment forget this exact feeling that they were sitting in.

_“Anne.”_

It was an attempt to grab her attention, a prayer and a plea all wrapped up in one. She laughed to herself and looked back into his darker than ever eyes, gently running her fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck that still stuck out slightly. “Hmm?”

“Come back to Avonlea with me”, he murmured against her lips, sounding so desperate and for once, she wanted to keep laughing instead of bursting into tears, _“…please.”_

All morning she had been convincing herself that this was just a stupid week that would turn into another stupid memory, that it would soon fade into the back of her mind like everything else. She could think of countless reasons as to why they wouldn’t work out, as to why it would be too difficult or why they should have just left it as the experience it was and walked away unscathed. But _would_ she come out of the other side unscathed? What if she saw Gilbert’s face in every single aisle whenever she did her grocery shopping, and what if she heard his laughter every single time she went to sleep at night? What if she couldn’t look at a high-five in the same way, or chop carrots without thinking of the time that Gilbert Blythe kissed the tip of her finger? Anne was suddenly struck with the petrifying realization that she could live the rest of her life without him in it, that he could just end up being another flicker of the world that she had come to know. She knew that above everything else, it would feel strange. It would feel _weird_ for her to wake up every morning and not want to tell him about her dream, would feel _absurd_ for her to read poetry with anybody else, or to play scrabble with someone that wouldn’t argue that she was cheating every five minutes. And if it was possible to live that life – then it was one that she could never want.

“I suppose we are going to the same place”, she teased, flicking the back of his neck playfully as he narrowed his eyes at her. “And Marilla and Matthew might want to meet the so-called person I’ve spent the past week with.”

“And I think I have some people that might want to meet you too”, he looked at her from under his eyelashes, a tad unsure – and she wanted to kiss him all over again for the first time.

She settled for a second time.

The second time was just as eager, but maybe a little less hurried. They took their time, letting out soft sighs every time their lips joined and fell apart again, just like dancing a waltz beneath twinkling golden stars. It felt familiar, like waking up beside someone for years and always reaching out with the certainty that they would be there. And it gave her hope that one day, she would stop feeling that obnoxious fluttering in her stomach around him, that maybe wasn’t so obnoxious after all. Or maybe that was the best part of it all, maybe he would never stop making her feel nervous.

“And maybe…”, he breathed into her hair after they parted, “…maybe if you don’t find me entirely intolerable after Christmas…maybe you would consider spending more than just the holidays with me.”

Anne tucked herself under his chin and held on tight, telling him in her own way that… ** _yes, she could be convinced._**

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you all enjoyed this! Thank you to my pals in the Storybook Club group chat for always making me smile and cheering me along when I was struggling with this. I love you all so so much and cannot wait to read all of your works when they come along!
> 
> I also want to give a shoutout to my sweetest friend ever, Irina (@bruadarxch). We originally had this idea as a fic collab and while I really do want to collab with her real soon, she was kind enough to let me finish this idea for my secret santa as it worked so well with my request. She is an absolute angel that brightens my day and she cheered me on fully, and please do check out her works on here because she is so talented and just uploaded an adorable christmas one shot of her own!
> 
> social media :
> 
> twitter : @anotherdorklol   
> tumblr : @the-strangest-person
> 
> happy holidays everyone! sending lots of love, no matter where you are or who you are with <3


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